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Marysville board selects five candidates

The Marysville Board of Education met in closed session Tuesday to whittle a list of about 20 candidates for superintendent down to five: Charles Michael Alley, Stephen Bigelow, Thomas English and Shawn Wightman

“They were individuals with a strong academic background,” said Board President Kevin Palmateer. “We were looking for somebody who is a curriculum leader, somebody who had a background and demonstrated ability to be successful in employee relations, a little human resources, if possible. We found five candidates to interview that we feel are very strong and could very well be the next superintendent at Marysville.”

The board entered into a closed session about 6:10 p.m. to discuss the about 20 resumes the district received for the position. A decision was made about 9:50 p.m.

Palmateer said he didn’t know it would take so long to go through the candidates.

“We reviewed every single applicant, not in the same detail, but we looked at every single applicant, where they were from, what their experience was, who were their references,” he said. “We looked at a number of different things and asked a lot of questions along the way.”

The district is using the Michigan Leadership Institute to assist in the search.

Former Superintendent James Cain left at the end of June to become the superintendent of the Port Huron Area School District. Marysville schools’ former executive director of finance and operations, Pat Speilburg, is serving as interim superintendent.

Second-round interviews will be Sept. 16-18. The board expects to select a new superintendent by the end of the month.

Contact Crystal Garcia at (810) 989-6276 or cagarcia@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @THCrystalGarcia.